December 06, 2011

Ever wondered how to make portable applications? OR you already know how to make portable apps but want an easy way out to make them? Guess what! There is a solution available which allows you to make portable applications online and that too without the complexities involved in making one. Read on this post and learn how to go about portable app online!

For those of you who are wondering what portable apps actually are? These are standalone applications which does not require any installation to be performed on users machine. These apps are greatly popular now a days because one can carry his favorite apps in a USB device and can run those apps on any machine. Other than this the best feature which you can think of having portable apps is that you can run them without administrator permission on host machine. ( Using portable applications to run application without administrative privileges is just one way to use your favorite application on any device on which you do not have admin rights available. Please read Using (Installing) applications without Administrator privileges to know more about different tricks you can use to get your apps working with user only account on any machine.)

There are various tools/software available in the market today that allow users to make portable versions of their applications such as VMware Thinapp, MS App V etc. But all these tools have one thing in common. In order to make portable apps these tools require a clean machine - that is a machine with only operating system installed. And also require user to manually install the application so that the program can capture information related to the installation and create portable version for the installed application.

Kick in Cameyo

While thinapp and app-v software are not free! Cameyo comes free. It allows you to create portable applications or virtual applications that can run without the installation. But it also requires clean machine and user intervention.

Virtual Apps online

Thanks to the guys from Cameyo! they have come up with a new service 'Online Application Packager' which allows users to make portable applications online without the need of any clean machine and intervention (for most of the applications). So let us have a look on how to make your apps portable online for free.

Open Cameyo Online packager and create a free ID for yourself. Do the activation by clicking the link you receive in your email, and login to your account.

As soon as you sign-in you will see the Portable app builder page. Here you have three options to select from in order to make your app portable.

First option is to search by name. For using this just write the application name for which you want the portable app.

Second option is to directly paste the download link (the url) of the application 'exe' or 'msi' file.

Third option is to select a file from your local machine and upload it in order to make a portable version for it.

After selecting your preference select the base environment for which you want the app that is 32 bit or 64 bit. Generally 32-bit will do. Now click on Submit button.

You'll now get a message screen displaying that your application will be ready in 10-20 mins. Just wait for some time, its faster than it says.

After sometime the page will refresh itself and you will get the download link for your portable application. That's it! just download the portable version of your app which is an 'exe' file and run it!

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Below are the Pros and Limitations of Cameyo online packager:

The Pros - Stuff we really liked!

The idea of online packager - no need to download and manually install the app

Make your own portable apps and be sure that they contain no viruses or hidden programs

Automatic emails which lets you know that your app is packaging and download links

The superfast response time

Free! Free! Free!

Limitations - Things the Cameyo guys can improve

The 30 MB file upload limitation - the online packager can only make portable applications for apps whose installers are less than 30 MB.